Though not an advertised feature, Nook appears to have added text-to-speech “read aloud” capability for all ebooks in its latest releases. The National Federation for the Blind posted about the “beta” feature–which appears as an “accessibility” setting–last week: “We selected enable accessibility (beta) which will actually provide speech to read Nook books. That’s quite momentous, and would be even better if it were documented somewhere we could find it, or if any of the customer service reps knew about it. Still–it’s more than we’ve seen previously.” In August, the California Public Library Authority reached a settlement with the NFB over […]
Libraries
eNews: Penguin Expands eBook Library Lending Pilot with Baker & Taylor; Sourcebook’s “Put Me In The Story” Children’s Book App
Penguin is expanding its library ebook lending pilot programs through a new distribution agreement with Baker & Taylor that will make their titles available to public libraries in Los Angeles County and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the NYT reports. Penguin tells us they “hope it is up and running before the end of the year.” The new initiative will employ the same lending terms as Penguin’s pilot with 3M and the New York public libraries from earlier this year: Titles are available for library lending six months after publication, sold at standard ebook prices, available for one-lend-at-a-time, with each purchase valid […]
A New Route to Library eBook Lending On the Way
Recorded Books is developing a new flexible library ebook lending platform that recognizes the varying requirements of today’s world: Publishers want to create their own, individual (and often elastic) models for the terms on which they will provide ebooks to libraries, rather than fit into a single model constructed by wholesalers. The Recorded Books model will give publishers title-level control over four key factors: price; limitations over the number of loans per purchase (if any); time limitation of the license (e.g. expires after one-year, etc.; again, if any); and availability of titles. Consultant Mike Shatzkin is working with Recorded Books […]
Hathi Trust Library Scans Are Judged Fair Use; Court Won’t Address Orphan Works Project Until It Is Resumed
With the recent settlement between Google and US publishers apparently not touching libraries at all (to the extent the parties have revealed anything), the companion suit by the Authors Guild and a number of other organzations against the Hathi Trust takes on extra interest. (Hathi is a digital repository for Google’s scans from many of the US academic libraries, with a strict set of limits, processes and procedures.) US District Court Judge Harold Baer in New York ruled on Wednesday, supporting the basic claim of the libraries that the Hathi Trust’s use of almost 10 million digital volumes qualifies as […]
From the Curb Your Enthusiasm Department, Penguin Library eBooks and BN’s Early Harvest
Penguin’s previously-announced library ebook lending pilot program with 3M and the Brooklyn Public Library, scheduled to last for a year, got off to a late start beginning yesterday, as announced in a 3M press release. That release let slip at the end of the third paragraph that “Penguin content is expected to be available to all 3M Cloud Library customers by the end of the year,” and other press has been off to the races from there. Penguin has not commented on the release and we have all seen in the past that vendors are not the authoritative source of […]
ALA and Publishers Talk–Directly to Each Other
The issues between publishers and libraries over the purchase and lending of ebooks are complicated and nuanced, and depending on how one wants to frame the reporting, you could see a session at the AAP’s New York office featuring ALA president Maureen Sullivan on Thursday as conciliatory, inflammatory, or both. Perhaps the best takeaway is that it’s more productive for both sides to communicate with each other directly rather than through posted statements. A number of publishers (and the media) attended the AAP’s presentation and moderated discussion featuring Sullivan, who was joined by a number of other ALA officers and […]